Five of these artists were chosen due to their connection to the city of Chicago. Jaume Plensa, whose beloved public installation The Crown Fountain (2004) illuminates Millennium Park with images of the city’s citizens, will present another portrait that explores the contemplative nature of interiority with Carmela (2017). McArthur Binion, who is included in this year’s Venice Biennale, is based in Chicago and inscribes his identity in the form of personal documents which create what he calls the “under conscious” of his paintings. Another Chicago transplant, Samuel Levi Jones, will present a painting composed of deconstructed books that challenges the historical power structures of recorded narratives. Hélio Oiticica, who many locals may recognize from his recent ground-breaking retrospective To Organize Delirium on view at the Art Institute of Chicago from February though May of 2017, will present the gouache drawing Sêco 15 (1957) that he created while part of Brazilian artist collective, Grupo Frente. A selection of work created by Grupo Frente artists was exhibited at Galerie Lelong New York this summer, coinciding with the presentation of his retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in May.

Other highlights include works by internationally prominent contemporary sculptors who explore the complex potential of materiality. Ursula von Rydingsvard’s wall sculpture Mundi (2012) evokes the shape of a wooden spoon and has a rich texture that is achieved through a strenuous process of cutting cedar beams and rubbing graphite into the surface. Petah Coyne’s Untitled #1419 (Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles) (2016) will be suspended from the ceiling, flowering into an intricate form of disparate materials such as silk flowers, wax, and ribbons.

Other artists engage with world history and cultural images. Nalini Malani, who draws from her direct experience as a refugee of the Partition of India and the legacy of colonialism and de-colonization will present Penelope (2012), a single-channel stop motion animation. Etel Adnan, an artist and author who has often spoken out against war, will present a leporello: an accordion-folded book that unveils panoramic illustrations. Alfredo Jaar highlights ongoing racial tensions in the U.S. in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement in Life Magazine, April 19, 1968 (1995), which marks the lack of non-black mourners in a historical photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral procession. Jane Hammond engages with the photographic medium as well but instead probes into the fictive and imaginative realms in recombinant paintings.